Future fathers should quit smoking

Women understand the dangers of drinking alcohol and smoking while pregnant. They should also convince their partner to quit smoking. The secondhand smoke that women breathe crosses the placenta and can affect the unborn child.

A new study published in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention mentions that men who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day increase the risk of their partner having a baby with a Central Nervous System (CNS) tumour. The study singles out astrocytomas, the most common type of primary brain tumour.

Matthieu Plichart is the study’s primary author from Inserm, a French public health research organization, and formerly from the University of Paris-Sud.

He says that "results suggest paternal smoking during the year prior to birth, including the pre-conceptional period and pregnancy, may play a role in childhood CNS tumours."

The risk of ependymoma, a rare glioma that may form in the brain and spine, also increases if the father smokes.

Researchers add that these adverse effects do not apply only to smoking during the nine months of pregnancy, but also to the previous year. The effects of tobacco are felt for a long time.

Smoking also diminishes the quality of a man’s sperm.